NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we are

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Yminale, Apr 23, 2014.

  1. gturner

    gturner Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    Um, no. The Sahara is shrinking. Increased CO2 means that plants lose less water through transpiration, allowing them to move into areas formerly too dry for them. Global warming also increases rainfall. For example, El Nino produces floods, and la Nina produces droughts. Past temperatures are sometimes estimated by using rainfall as proxy. The planet's largest and driest desert is in Antarctica, not Africa.
     
  2. Yminale

    Yminale Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    Uhm yes. Every resource I looked up states that Sahara is expanding.
     
  3. B.J.

    B.J. Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    ~12.5 days total, but who's counting?

    In the near term, geologically speaking, yes, Earth is the best place for us. But in the extreme long term, the sun and Earth will eventually die. Then what? Personally, I hope the human race survives that long and has found a way to live beyond the Solar System, rather than just die with it.
     
  4. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    One of the single greatest unpopular ideas in human history is any kind reproduction law, especially limitations. Even in China, the restrictions on child bearing were finally lifted after being so unpopular.

    I share in your sarcasm.

    RAMA
     
  5. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

     
  6. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    HAL is not human derived AI, he is completely machine, and no human brain emulation is very real and progressing all the time. I believe I recently posted some links that give a likely timeline for this, last time was in the Transcendence thread in SF forum. Far from being in the realm of fantasy, it's basically just a matter of time and mathematics at this point.

    Um..cost is exactly what goes down as it become more common...more development=more access. Commercial space initiatives are already proliferating, and the first SLS will be tested soon, making interplanetary travel more common.

    No the UN population figures are accurate:

    http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen

    As for population rates, they will go up before they go down. See the link I posted in the last comment.
     
  7. Chilli

    Chilli Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    I learned by reading this thread that NASA is directly responsible for what budget it's assigned. Neat.

    For how cynical you are about humanity, you've got an absurdly anthropocentric idea of "littering". Humans have left a negligible amoung of waste on the moon, yes. To the universe, that's pretty irrelevant: a bit of inanimate matter on a huge chunk of inanimate matter, and nobody there to care about it one way or the other. To a civilization way more advanced than ours, these'd be some fascinating artefacts on an otherwise boring world. It takes a human to go "eww, astronaut poop".

    Nothing less intelligent than us would know to be offended or bothered by anything humans have left on the moon, and to anything more intelligent than us, bitching about human artifacts on the moon would kinda be like finding a single feather, or speck of moss, on an otherwise lifeless rockface, and thinking the rockface forever ruined.

    And this is what annoys me about people that run around bitching about how rubbish humanity is, often while wearing t-shirts reading "people=shit" and whatnot. It's not even that I disagree with the sentiment. It's that the people voicing it often seem to think they can disavow any connection to the unwashed masses of rubbish people simply by being sufficiently dickish. But in doing so, they will often end up exhibiting some of the worst human characteristics, with their dickishness often aimed at people exhibiting the best human characteristics - like the folks over at NASA in this case. If there's any single organization that's done more to expand our knowledge of the universe we live in over the last few decades than NASA, I'd really like to hear it.
     
  8. 2takesfrakes

    2takesfrakes Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    Chill, Chilli! I'm O.K. ... You're O.K. ...

    Your missive is rambling, I'm not sure exactly how much of what you're saying is actually directed at me "personally," or just a tirade. But be assured that I do not - I say again, NOT - wear T-shirts with slogans, logos, messages of any kind. I do not believe that "People Are Shit." I happen to love people - especially women people.

    Yet, I have dissed the Head of NASA's speech and sentiments, regarding Humanity setting up shoppe throughout the Cosmos. And, apparently, you take exception to that. What can I say? I am an American. I know full-well what NASA is, what it's done and what it does. Perhaps you believe I should be grateful and supportive of the agency? Perhaps, you find some duplicity in a STAR TREK fan not supporting the notion of Humanity spread throughout the Galaxy?

    Yes, there are stewards of the environment. Yes, there are individuals who don't want to contribute to Global Warming, or deforestation, or any number of things affecting the Natural World. But those noble sentiments have yet to reach full swing. There is a very long way to go. And we are very capable, and in fact, very likely, of polluting the worlds we visit. Because that, too, is part of the Human Condition. We've already started, in a way ... and all in the name of exploration. As noble and worthy as The Quest for Knowledge is, however well-intentioned, the act of pursuing it is neither passive, nor necessarily benign, for that matter.
     
  9. scotthm

    scotthm Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    National Geographic

    New Scientist

    ---------------
     
  10. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    I did no such thing. What one personally feels that Walmart sells has nothing to do with the point that the amount of artificial objects on extraterrestrial surfaces can be placed into one supermarket-sized building on Earth. The poster mentioned that this amount constitutes "littering" of these extraterrestrial surfaces, which is nonsense. But since then we've established that his point was nonsense to begin with, so there's really no reason to belabor this.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2014
  11. gturner

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    The largest objects we ever landed on a body was the Apollo lunar lander. With the legs retracted the lunar lander was about 14-feet by 13.3-feet. We left six landers on the moon, which would take up about 1,117 square feet. The lunar rover was 10-feet by 6-feet, and we left three of them, bringing the total to 1,297 square feet. The two Russian rovers were about 5-feet by 7, bringing the total to 1,367 square feet. The average Walmart is 102,000 square feet, so we'd have to do 75 more Apollo programs just to fill up a Walmart. (It would take 550 Apollo landers to fill an average store). The moon's area is about 400 trillion square feet, so it would take 2 trillion landings to cover it, so to cover the moon with landers, every single person on Earth would have to fly 750 Apollo missions (since each mission takes three people).

    And yet someone thinks six missions have ruined the place.
     
  12. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    Not quite. Several Saturn V third stages had crashed on the Moon post-mission, not to mention the Centaur upper stage from the LCROSS mission, which were significantly larger than the landers. Which was why I upped my estimate of the size of a building on Earth that would house all the artificial objects on extraterrestrial surfaces. And I'm probably being extremely generous in my size estimate as well, as you've rightly mentioned.
     
  13. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    It's fascinating. I used to joke about it, because I thought it was awesome, when I suddenly realised people were taking this extraterrestrial littering thing seriously.

    If there's ever a settlement, human or otherwise, anywhere near a crashed rocked stage, the wreck will be a monument, you wouldn't be allowed to touch it, I'd reckon you wouldn't even be allowed to put it inside the pressurised part of your habitat or step anywhere near it. Cleaning it is what would be tantamount to littering and contamination.

    Not only there is no biosphere or natural wonders there to disturb, but these objects are so rare and unique that they wouldn't disturb anything even if there was. It would be no different if ancient aliens crashed a spacecraft inside a present-day rainforest, we'd cut the trees around it to expose it, and it will be the polar opposite of waste. And if it was buried under a house in Pompeii, we'd disturb part of the ruins to open access to it precisely because it was more unique and rare.

    On an semi-related note, even exaggarated end-of-the-world fictional works can show appreciation for technological junk in a middle of a rainforest.
     
  14. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    Supports my opinion that there is nothing absolutely bad about climate change. It's just different than we are used to, and that will cost a bit of money in some regions, but other regions will profit from it.
     
  15. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    When you burn fossil fuel, you are essentially returning bio-mass to the surface. When Earth had no icecaps, it was a bit more lush. Supercontinent are bad news--the Gobi desert is the result of the Eurasia proto-Supercontinent.


    I'm for cancelling F-35 and giving that money to NASA.
     
  16. USS Triumphant

    USS Triumphant Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

    Revise that to give a THIRD to NASA, along with a third to public primary education, and another third to reinforce our food aid programs, and I'm with you wholeheartedly. But if neither of the other two were feasible for some reason, then heck yes - give it to NASA. Better than the waste of money the F-35 program is now, either way.